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32
The survey was now completed, and all arrangements settled,
including plans for the provision of hospital accommodation. The
Board's inspectors had looked closely to the condition of the
several towns, and to see how the local authorities were doing
their work. At some of the ports the arrangements were very
satisfactory, the authorities being careful and thoughtful in their
preparations. At others there were shortcomings. The inspectors
had striven to rouse less careful authorities. A principal danger
to be guarded against was the importation of Cholera in rags, and
so it had been arranged that rags should not be imported without
proper precautions against possible mischief. With reference
to hospital provision for London, the Asylums Board could only
act, as had been stated, as a first line of defence. The two
thousand beds they were said to be able to provide would be very
useful, but it was important to inquire as to the convenience of
the proposed hospitals in point of nearness to those who would be
likely to require hospital treatment. The Vestries and District
Boards would form the second line of defence, and this would be
the more important should Cholera come. The Vestries would
have to provide places of refuge for the healthy when the sick
were too ill to be removed. With this branch of work, probably
the most important, as being the best way of dealing with Cholera,
the Asylums Board would have nothing to do, nor with the
provision of disinfectants, medicines, &c. He concluded by
inviting suggestions as to arrangements it was desirable for the
Board to make, and as to any arrangements with reference to which
it was desirable that the Board should make communication to the
Sanitary Authorities.
The above account of the work of preparation in past years is
not without practical interest at the present time, for as I write
(in April) we are in receipt of ominous accounts of the reappearances
of Cholera in Europe, this time in Italy.* It is satisfactory
to know, however, that the organisation contemplated last
*At Brindisi—attributed to the linen of a passenger on one of the steamers
arriving from the Levant.